14 DAY TRIAL // Google has announced that it will be changing its policy on the sale of trademarked keywords for its search ads in Europe. Specifically, Google will now enable anyone to buy keywords that contain terms trademarked by other companies. Previously, Google didn’t allow this in most European countries. The move follows a court decision which ruled that Google was well within its legal rights to sell these keywords to competitors.
"Today, we are announcing an important change to our advertising trademark policy. A company advertising on Google in Europe will now be able to select trademarked terms as keywords," Dan Stokeley, a Google product manager, said.
“If, for example, a user types in a trademark of a television manufacturer, he could now find relevant and helpful advertisements from resellers, review sites and second hand dealers as well as ads from other manufacturers," he added.
In much of the world and in the UK and Ireland in Europe, Google will not block others from bidding and buying keywords that use a company’s trademark and will not remove those ads if the company complains about infringement. Tougher laws in Europe though compelled Google to remove ads like that.
Come September 14, Google’s European policy will get in line with the rest of the world. Google still won’t allow advertisers to include third-party trademarked words in the text of the ads, but they can use them as keywords. The rule is, for Europe and the rest of the world, that these ads shouldn’t be confusing about the origin of the products.
Companies will be able to complain about confusing ads and Google will remove them, if it also believes that is the case. The ban on buying trademarked keywords is still in place in Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Macau, New Zealand, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan.